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The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

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Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#21

Post by ryanhuff »

simonw wrote: post #17
codyrobbins wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the current popularity of web apps over desktop apps is driven by two different motivating factors: social and centralized storage. The nature of the Web makes it well suited to building social apps on top of it. It would be hard to build social apps on an application layer that didn’t transcend physical platforms, because then there would be platform-induced delineations between the social groups that could…

Web apps beat native apps because there's no install step, no upgrade step and hyperlinks provide the ultimate way for different apps to communicate with each other.

Agreed, but I would generalize it a bit more and say that web apps reduced the barrier to consumption considerably over desktop applications.

In most cases, mobile apps are close enough to web apps in regards to barrier of consumption to make the difference moot, and when you add the native advantage, the result is a net positive consumer experience for mobile apps.

Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#22

Post by natesm »

dmix wrote: post #9
natesm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes. Write once, mediocre everywhere. Let's strive for that!

Javascript working on multiple platforms (browsers) isn't quite a new concept is it? Sure IE6/7 had poor JS performance but IE7 is nearing death and performance of on mobile browsers is increasing rapidly (as well as CPU performance).

The performance isn't an issue, but Google Docs still isn't anywhere near the quality of Keynote or Word. iCloud will remove the advantage of instant synchronization, so there aren't many upsides (as a user) to avoiding the native app that adheres to your platform's interface guidelines.

Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#23

Post by tikhonj »

jamesu wrote: post #6

Sometimes i wish more people would care more about making good products rather than the next buzzword middleware stack which solves everything.

Calling the internet a "buzzword middleware stack" is underplaying the fundamental differences between the web and native apps.

Even now making a web app as opposed to a native app does not necessarily preclude quality; as mobile web browsers and technologies mature, web apps are going to afford developers more and more quality.

If I wanted to make a quality app to reach even just both Android and iPhones, I would effectively have to implement it twice--first in Java and then in Objective-C, using different libraries throughout. With a web app, I could write it once. Of course, maintaining browser compatibility and overcoming potential shortcomings of current browsers probably means it would take me longer to write the web app to a similar level of quality than either the Android or iPhone app; however, it would almost definitely not take longer than both put together. Thus, I would have more time to add quality to my web app--and less maintenance headaches--than I would just supporting both Android and iPhone natively (not to mention other platforms like Blackberry or Windows Phone).

Ultimately, I think it's the people who just want to make quality products that can reach a large audience who should care about web apps.

Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#24

Post by brigade »

dmix wrote: post #7
codyrobbins wrote: post #5

No. Somebody please stop this guy. After reading this I feel about him like the machines must have when they sent the Terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor. Web apps are to native mobile apps as Java apps are to native desktop apps: ploddingly slow with clunky non-standard UIs—a degraded, lackluster experience. With some notable exceptions I think they can be a pragmatically motivated stopgap step (in regards…

> ploddingly slow with clunky non-standard UIs—a degraded, lackluster experience That sounds like the arguments I used to hear from desktop devs back when web apps start to appear. Sure web mobile apps kind of suck right now, but theres hardely any frameworks, established processes or documentation on how to build them properly. It's still in alpha stages. When building mobile apps has matured and if they still have…

"used to"?

I certainly haven't stopped making this argument for web vs. desktop apps, as it has yet to be solved. If it even can be solved (mainly the UI/UX issues; performance probably will eventually approach "good enough" for a given app.)

Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#25

Post by stevenwei »

Everything will be relegated to the 'dustbin of history' given a long enough time period, it's a completely meaningless statement.

CDs were quite useful for many years, before they were replaced by newer, superior technologies. Mobile apps are currently the best way to deliver the best user experience on mobile devices.

In the future this may change, but that should not be particularly surprising to anybody given how quickly technology improves.

Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#26

Post by [deleted] »

johnrob wrote: post #14
natesm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes. Write once, mediocre everywhere. Let's strive for that!

Ultimately, whoever writes the checks gets to decide what to strive for. If you can afford to hire a developer for each platform, great. Otherwise HTML5 is a compelling alternative.

[deleted]

Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#27

Post by sien »

v21 wrote: post #18

I'm sympathetic to what he's saying. It is painful to develop lots of separate platforms. But I work making games. And so this promised land is still way over the horizon. We're only just getting to the point where a HTML5 game can be notable as anything other than a tech demo on the desktop. It'll be another few years before we reach that point for mobile.

Indeed.

But a lot of mobile apps are not like games. They are adaptations of web sites for a particular mobile device. This is where what he is saying surely makes a lot of sense. Really, apps like twitter should be able to be done with HTML5.

But more involved applications like games make sense to be native applications.

Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#28

Post by cft »

simonw wrote: post #17
codyrobbins wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the current popularity of web apps over desktop apps is driven by two different motivating factors: social and centralized storage. The nature of the Web makes it well suited to building social apps on top of it. It would be hard to build social apps on an application layer that didn’t transcend physical platforms, because then there would be platform-induced delineations between the social groups that could…

Web apps beat native apps because there's no install step, no upgrade step and hyperlinks provide the ultimate way for different apps to communicate with each other.

install once is often easier than navigating to a URL on a phone each time. Many users like apps due to one click launch

Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#29

Post by cageface »

simonw wrote: post #17
codyrobbins wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the current popularity of web apps over desktop apps is driven by two different motivating factors: social and centralized storage. The nature of the Web makes it well suited to building social apps on top of it. It would be hard to build social apps on an application layer that didn’t transcend physical platforms, because then there would be platform-induced delineations between the social groups that could…

Web apps beat native apps because there's no install step, no upgrade step and hyperlinks provide the ultimate way for different apps to communicate with each other.

Web apps are fine for lightweight, data-driven tasks. For tasks that require richer interactions they are still decidedly inferior. This may change as HTML standards and compliance evolve but it's not crazy to suggest that a well-written native app will always be one or two steps ahead.

Re: The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history

#30

Post by cageface »

natesm wrote: post #22
dmix wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Javascript working on multiple platforms (browsers) isn't quite a new concept is it? Sure IE6/7 had poor JS performance but IE7 is nearing death and performance of on mobile browsers is increasing rapidly (as well as CPU performance).

The performance isn't an issue, but Google Docs still isn't anywhere near the quality of Keynote or Word. iCloud will remove the advantage of instant synchronization, so there aren't many upsides (as a user) to avoiding the native app that adheres to your platform's interface guidelines.

Web apps were a natural bridge into the "cloud" world but now that we've all gotten good at decoupling our UIs from our backend and building all our web apps like a service native apps can just as easily be natural clients of the cloud.
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